Exodus 16-30

Hey, so did you know Moses was married and had kids?  No?  Well, that's another of the marked differences between Exodus and its predecessor Genesis.  The remarkable thing is that Aaron, although less famous, still has about equal billing, as I've suggested before a lot like an improved Jacob/Esau situation.

Another thing I haven't mentioned yet but keeps coming up is the significance of repeated numbers.  Here, besides all the sevens and forties that stretch back to Genesis, is the emphasis on three, which is another thing the New Testament borrows (actually, all three numbers, although the three days bit is easily the most important one).

As the action picks up, the Hebrews have commenced with their bellyaching and Moses discusses this with God, who comes up with the idea of manna, which also supports his seven day pattern.  Less famous are the quails that serve as dinner with equal regularity as the appearance of the manna in the early morning hours.  Then they grumble about water and God gives them that, too.

And then they go to war, the episode that involves Moses holding his arms up and then having them propped up so his side prevails.  This marks the first references to Joshua, who will eventually become his successor.  As I was saying, in Genesis, Joshua would have been his son, or at least have been introduced earlier or at any rate less randomly.  Then comes a good bit revolving around Jethro, the father of Moses' phantom wife.  What follows is basically the institution of the priestly order, at least as Christians would understand it.

Then God scares everyone by appearing as thunder and lightning, and then what is supposed to be the Ten Commandments.  Except maybe slightly later in Exodus they're reduced only to the first ten in terms of general importance, because although those are certainly the first and featured, there follow many more.  Many more.  In fact, some of them appear to be clarifications for some of the first ones you know already, all sorts of rules governing what constitutes acceptable (!) murder and what doesn't, for instance.  Actually, the whole thing is like setting up the basic rules of a society, like the pillar inscribed with the code of Hammurabi, which predates Moses by some five hundred years.  (The Bible, incidentally, is first codified perhaps a thousand years or so after its initial events take place.  So the things we know from roughly the time of the Dark Ages is the kind of memory the Jews would've sustained until making an official account of it.)

And then God gives Moses incredibly (incredibly) detailed instructions for the famed ark of the covenant (or, the title object from Indiana Jones's first adventure, Raiders of the Lost Ark).  In a sense, this is an echo from another ark entirely, but again, incredibly detailed.  Noah's ark did not come with nearly these many instructions, although to be fair it was only meant to have two of every creature and not God himself within it.  This also serves as the foundation of Jewish temples and Christian churches, even down to the necessary vestments to be worn by the priests or rabbis within them.

And, certainly, God bless anyone who has the fortitude to read through all of it.  Although again, these passages also clearly allude to other gods besides God Almighty, the Lord as acknowledged even by God himself.  When he calls himself a jealous god, now you know why.